This article, written by Kathleen Murphy in 1999, illustrates some of the copyright issues photographers faced in the early stages of the internet.  This was a time when the online legal rights for photographers and other content owners were unclear and untested.  The rights of photographers were entangled with the property rights of website creators and owners.  Piracy was a problem before digital photography came about, but hosting, storing and displaying photos online made it easier to steal them.  All of a sudden it only took a right click and “save”.  It was also a daunting task to try to catch and punish photo pirates, given the enormity and anonymity of the internet.
 Ms. Murphy describes some cutting-edge technology to track down online piracy, including digital watermarking and web “spider” services like Cyveillance.  She admits that nothing is perfect, and much of the work of catching online copyright infringement is left up to the photographers themselves.  Many photographers were not willing to spend the money on watermarking, or monthly service fees for services like Cyveillance.  It is easy to see how quickly online content owners were lulled into a sense of complacency, that it just “wasn’t worth it” to track down copyright infringers.  In 1999, the alternatives were pricy and unreliable.
 Another key issue discussed is that the contracts photographers signed when licensing their photos to a website were weighed heavily in favor of the website owner, and against the photographer.  Many of them took all rights from the photographer forever.  Those rights would then be transferred to a client, in the case of a stock photo website for example, and the photographer’s rights would be omitted yet again.  Licensing is only mentioned in this context, not in the context of the photographer creating or controlling their own licenses.
 The article seems to be geared toward photographers who sell their photos to “big business” or stock photo sites, and displays a desire for stronger copyright and better online piracy detection.  This was a time when the future of internet content and technology innovation was unsure.  Very few people had the insight to sense what the internet would become, or how important individual content owners would become; on sites like Flickr for example.  Creative Commons deals with some of these issues – it allows photographers greater control over their rights.  It allows people to dictate how their work can be used, and allows for the possibility that not all photographers want “all rights reserved”, as this article would suggest.  Using Creative Commons licensing on your photos will not stop piracy altogether, but it can go a length to prevent unintentional piracy, and make your work more accessible on the internet.  Creative Commons can help create a realm of work online that is in between the two extremes suggested by this article – complete anarchy with constant photo piracy, or strict licensing that takes and wields all of someone’s rights.